


Extended Development

by curls101



Series: I'm Sorry but I Fell In Love Tonight [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Photographer, Hipsters everywhere, M/M, Percival has a crisis about the meaning of Art, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8310304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curls101/pseuds/curls101
Summary: “I know you have things to say. I know there’s so much in your mind you want to tell people, but this,” he taps the sketchbook on Percy’s lap twice, “Doesn’t show that. I want you to show me the way you see the world! What do you believe to be true? Where do you find beauty?”-When Percy picks up Photography as his 4th subject, he's not really sure what to expect. Certainly not a world of unanswerable questions, people more talented than him, and a teacher who insists on going by his first name. Maybe the answer is to be found in a strange meeting, with a strange boy, who can somehow walk in combat boots without being heard and has an eye for beautiful things.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It didn’t always work this way.  
> There was a time you had to get your hands dirty,  
> when you were in the dark for most of it.  
> Fumbling was a given.  
> When you needed more contrast, more saturation-  
> darker darks and brighter brights-  
> they called it extended development.
> 
> \-- **Extended Development by Sarah Kay**

He calls his project `A Study of Shadow`.  
The title covers the first double page of his sketchbook in swirling cursive. White marker on black card. Then there is a page for his inspirations and ideas. _Basilico. Feininger. Shultz._ Sharp lines. Shadows cutting the forms of passing strangers. Long shadows. Obstruction. Surrealism. He has a preference for digital over film, and the use of one single, painfully bright light in a room of complete darkness.

“Your sketchbook is beautiful,” Sir notes, his heavily jeweled fingers tracing the swirls of the handwriting, “Have you done an art subject before?”  
He turns his face fully towards Percy, who shakes his head, focusing on twisting a worn silver ring on his left index finger. His professor does not press him further, instead turning swiftly through his first two shoots, lingering on his latest. Images taken from within the shadows of tall buildings, pointing out towards the light. _To document the transitional,_ the page explains, _to explore the experience of seeing light, but being surrounded by darkness._ He shuts the book with a soft thud.  
“I do really like where you’re going with this, Percival-”  
“Percy,” he interrupts, sitting upright, meeting his teacher’s eyeline. Student, not a Lord. “Please. Just Percy.”  
The teacher, eyebrows shooting into his dark hair, seemingly a little taken aback, nods,  
“Well then, what are you exploring next shoot, Percy?”

He considers. Summer is ending. Good for him personally, but it means the end of seemingly endless, drawn out evenings with long shadows for him to shoot in.  
“Shadows of window frames. Taken on the interior. I’m always fascinated by the way the evening warps them.”  
The teacher smiles widely and leans back in his chair. It throws Percy off; how casual he is. He’s used to the tense grimaces of his physics and further maths teachers. He’s used to _correct or incorrect. Black or white. Light or shadow._ Art- apparently- exists entirely in the grey; an area Percy is unsure if he’s entirely comfortable in. 

He hovers his hand over the cover of Percy’s sketchbook, before scooping it up and presenting it back to its owner,  
“Only two notes for improvement.”  
Percy sets the sketchbook in his lap, and nods for him to continue. He says improvement, but what he means is _`you are doing this wrong`._  
“Percy, I know I’ve mentioned this before but at this point everyone in this class-” he pauses to gesture grandly at the U shape of monitors that surround them - “has done a black and white film. I know digital is your preference, but without at least one shoot of film per term, you can’t show your ability to work in different mediums.”  
“I understand, Sir,” he replies, curtly. He thinks his teacher flinches,  
“Please Percy, Shaun will do, everyone calling me `Sir` will begin to make me feel old!”  
He laughs. Louder than is perhaps necessary, Percy thinks, but it’s a warm, summer laugh. The kind of laugh that people remember years after the person it belongs to is gone,  
“Shaun, then. You said two things?”  
“Yes, yes, the second thing,” he adjusts himself in his seat. Must be major.  
“What are you exploring in these shoots, Percy? I know you’re looking at shadows, I get that, but what concept are you developing?”

He pauses. Percy knows he has no answer for him. Bringing emotions into his schoolwork had, up until this year, been discouraged. Emotions do not change if a gear will turn, or a pendulum will swing.  
“I’m not sure I understand, Si- Shaun.”  
The name feels wrong, he notes. Feels to personal. Shaun leans forward, his left hand thumbing his goatee, a fire dancing in his eyes,  
“The best students I’ve ever had have come away from these two years in this class feeling like they learned something valuable about themselves. Art- I believe- is the truest form of expression. Photography, just one arm of many, captures the world the way photographers wish us to see it. It can be misleading, beautiful, tragic…” he emphasises each word with grand hand gestures. Percy feels overwhelmed for no reason he truly understands, “I know you have things to say. I know there’s so much in your mind you want to tell people, but this,” he taps the sketchbook on Percy’s lap twice, “Doesn’t show that. I want you to show me the way you see the world! What do you believe to be true? Where do you find beauty?”

Shaun, realising that he is going off on a rather large tangent and also being too loud, coughs and sits back. He looks to Percy, trying to gauge if he understands the magnitude of what he has just been told. Percy is unsure what response he finds in his startled face,  
“I...I see.,” he responds, a little too slowly to seem convincing, “I will try.”  
Shaun nods and smiles with a little too much sadness,  
“Think about it, Percy. That’s all I ask.”

\--

Percy rents a film camera from the college that week- something he had never had to do before now - and shoots a full film over the next 24hrs. Sir’s words echo in his mind with every click of the shutter. _What do you believe to be true?_ Somehow Percy knew there was something he was missing about these words, for he believed many things to be true. He believed that the world was round. He believed that the tide was connected to the moon. He believed that the 700 bus arrived every 10 minutes. All of these things were truths, and he believed them, so why did this question continue to haunt him? What was it with art and all these questions?

Cassandra had believed that photography would be good for him. She said he had a _talent_. That it would be a good way for him to _express himself_. It was true that between Engineering, Further Mathematics and Archeology, Photography seemed like a breath of fresh air. A class where you did not need to attend so long as you were shooting images. A class that asked only for a presentable sketchbook, with which you could do whatever you wanted - for the most part. Yet this was a class that gave a grade, but asked endless and unanswerable questions? How were you meant to do _well_ in a class like that?

Maybe this explained this feeling that had been nagging him since he had started Photography. Looking at everyone else's sketchbooks was always valuable, and fresh perspectives often lead to quicker answers. Yet, every time Percy had seen an image created by one of his classmates, they always seemed superior. Everyone had their own style, so that was impossible to compare, and from a technical standpoint, Percy’s images were equal- if not superior- to theirs. So why, every time he saw someone else's work, did he feel like he didn’t belong here? Like he had wandered into the wrong room, or they had cast him for the wrong part. Sir said he had _promise, an eye, a talent,_ but where was he seeing that? Percy’s images felt vapid in comparison. A newspaper in a gallery.

\---

The darkroom was abandoned this early in the college day. No student would voluntarily begin working at 7:30 unless they were intent in avoiding all other classmates, who would probably begin to filter in past 9. The rows of black, sci-fi esc projector boxes all lay dormant as Percy wandered in, three rows of purple film clutched carefully between his fingers. The chemicals in the three trays were fresh for the morning and the acrid smell almost burned the inside of his nostrils. He remembered this from Induction- he couldn’t get the smell out of his coat sleeves for weeks. Putting his coat aside, Percy turned on the tap- the sound of running water the loudest thing in the room- and flicked on a projector as close to the development trays as physically possible.

The smell was only a small part of Percy’s acquired hatred for darkrooms. The red lightbulbs that hung from the obnoxiously high ceiling did little to provide any visibility for someone who wore glasses. The rows of projectors, contained in their little cubicles, blocked any visibility of the door, and on top of it all, the `press if there's an emergency` button sat at exactly at shoulder height next to the development trays. If you wanted to lean even a little on the wall, you would bring the entire department running in to help. For such an archaic process, Percy often wondered why the department still taught it, when there were digital cameras that were easier and could do everything film could do. So much effort for so little gain.

Even so, it was relatively easy for Percy to get into the rhythm of the process. Test strips were used until the right exposure time was found on the projector (which led to a graveyard of failures mounting in the rinsing sink that Percy would absolutely not just leave there and forget about). Then you exposed the full image. Into the developer for 7 minutes, then the Stop for 30 seconds, then the Fix for a final 5 minutes, before you dumped it into the sink to collect in about 10 minutes time. Once you picked up speed, it was easy to work out when you needed to move everything along, alternating between creating new images, and working with those you were already developing. Even Percy had to admit there was a calmness to the process. A musical beat to it. 

Percy had just enough time to register movement out of the corner of his eye, before a hand entered his vision, reaching for the developer box. He lept backwards, letting out a stream of expletives, clutching at his heart and reaching for anything he could defend himself with.  
“Whoah there! I’m just trying to put this in the developer. Not tryn’a start a fight, big guy.”  
Percy turned, taking deep breaths, and nodded to the man who had accidentally accosted him. The man had both hands raised as if to prove he wasn’t about to stab him, and he certainly didn’t appear threatening. His hair was all tied back in a bun that was half-falling out, and was wearing a sort of half-smirk that was surprisingly endearing. He was a lithe figure in the dim light, his slender silhouette highlighted by tight skinny jeans that were tucked into black combat boots. His shirt was sleeveless, and featured a design for some kind of metal band in a hilariously unreadable font. Slowly, the man lowered his hands, as Percy continued to nod, trying to get his brain to stop panicking. Curse this darkroom and its non-visible door..  
“I’m Vax,” the intruder explained, breaking him out of his thoughts, “Sorry if I scared you, I’m a little,” he stopped to smile to himself, as if acknowledging a joke only he understood, “People say I’m light on my feet.” 

Vax shoved one hand into the pocket of his too-tight jeans and extended the other towards Percy, who took it in a firm handshake,  
" Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the Third,” he explained. Vax stared at him dumbfounded as the long string of names fell from his lips as easily as breathing, before he added, “Percy is easier.”  
The intruder nodded,  
“Percy, then.” 

The two fell into a comfortable silence after that. Vax, he noted, was far more practised in the darkroom than he was. Vax didn’t bother with test strips, instead choosing to just waste full size sheets of photo paper just guessing the right exposure. The amount of times he was right on his first try put Percy’s piles of failed test strips to shame. True to his comments, Percy could never quite position him in the room while his back was turned. The amount of times he’d turned around just to elbow the other man in the ribs was frankly getting ridiculous. How he managed to create absolutely no sound while wandering around in combat boots, Percy had no idea.

Percival dropped his last image into the developer and took a deep breath, gently rocking the tray to create small, tide-like waves over the image. This ensured that the developer touched all of the paper and developed it evenly, rather than having undeveloped patches. Out of the corner of his eye a hand entered his vision and dropped another image into the tray before vanishing again. Vax put his images into the developer face-up, Percy noticed. Less efficient, but Percy could appreciate the need to know if an image worked out immediately rather than waiting 2 minutes to flip it over. He watched as a dark patch blossomed in the top left of the image, the waves of developer slowly bringing the image to the surface. 

The image wasn’t precisely complex. A shirtless man stood at a window; his head removed by the top of the photo. The shadow from the window frame painted a clear `+` across the outrageously muscled torso, the vague droplets of rain on the windowpane making small warped circles on the model’s skin. It wasn’t indecent, but definitely the kind of image you’d minimise on a library computer in case someone was watching. The shadows were exposed perfectly, cutting sharp, dark lines in the highlight. It was simple, but stunning in way Percy couldn’t quite explain. 

Vax materialised at his side, peering over his shoulder.  
“Well, that turned out better than expected,” he muttered, letting out a small humming sound, before leaning back onto the wall next to them.  
“Is this-” Percy started, unsure of what he was going to ask. _Is this what you always shoot like? Is this your truth?_ To his surprise, Vax chuckled,  
“As flattered as I am that you think so, no, that’s not me. It’s a friend who spends too much time shirtless.”  
“That’s not-”  
Before Percy could really respond, the alarm started beeping.

Vax went wide-eyed before looking down to his left where his shoulder was pressed firmly on the large, red emergency button,  
“Shit,” he muttered, “Sheri’s gunna kill-”  
Percy heard the sound of encroaching heels and out of the corner of his eye he saw Vax duck under the development trays. He smirked at Percy and held a single finger to his lips. Before he could really process any of what was happening, he heard the movement of the plastic sheets that protected the door to the darkroom,  
“ _Vax’ildan_ , I swear to _every God that exists_ if you’ve pressed this _again_ -”  
Turning the corner was the Department Technician, Sheri, with her hair tied in her signature tight bun and glasses falling down her nose. Percy could only imagine what she had been doing before the alarm had sounded. For a moment she seemed furious, but upon turning the corner, her face softened,  
“Oh, it’s you Percival,” she muttered, clearing her throat, “Is everything alright in here?”  
Percy was many things, but he was not a slow man. He put on his best charming smile and straightened his back,  
“Yes, of course, Miss Sheri. I’m afraid I may have leant slightly on the alarm. My sincere apologies for interrupting your crucial work, everything is quite under control in here. I will endeavor to be more careful in future.”  
Sheri looked flustered for just a moment, before tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and clasping her hands behind her back,  
“Thank you, Percival. Do be more careful.”  
Then, with the fading sound of heeled boots, she was gone. A few heartbeats later, the alarm stopped its incessant beeping.

Vax sprung to his feet with the smile of a schoolboy who’d just got away with some awful prank.  
“Well, well, consider me charmed, Mr Silver Spoon,” he laughed, pulling himself up to sit on one of the projector counters, “You’ve got quite a way with words.”  
Percy could feel the blush rising in his cheeks, but he imagined it was hidden by the darkroom lights. He moved their images over to the Stop with the tongs.  
“It’s uh...it’s just,” Percy paused to time 20 seconds, before moving the images over to the Fix, “It’s just how I was raised to be.”  
“Huh,” Vax hummed, hopping down from the counter, “Well then, Silver, now I owe you one.”  
Percy shook his head. He didn’t want to be connected to this strangely invisible man who seemed to be on the wrong side of art technicians. It would be better if he had no connections to anyone. He was better alone,  
“No, really, that’s absolutely not necessary.”  
“Bullshit it’s not necessary. I’ve done that twice a week all year, she would’a killed me,” Vax insisted, with surprising ferocity, pointing in the direction of the door, “How about coffee? Canteen coffee is utter shit, but it’d be free, right? Then we’d be square.” 

Percy knew that he should say no. He knew that this was the kind of boy that meant trouble, and he had enough of that on his own as it is, but Percy felt strangely drawn to him. Maybe it was the picture. He had so much he wanted to ask about it. Who was the model, if not him? Why did he choose an angle that removed the face- the most expressive part of portraiture? What kind of project made him take images like that? What was he trying to say?  
“Very well then. Canteen coffee,” Percy nodded, dumping his image into the sink and beginning to collect everything he had left in there to shove it through the drier. Vax smiled too widely for his face, and began to do the same,  
“I think you’re a mocha man, Percival,” he chattered, mindlessly, “You strike me as a mocha kinda guy…”

\---

**Author's Note:**

> okay so I've been working on this for a long time. I'm really excited about writing it, but I want it to be good, so no set update time. Please let me know if you liked it and if you'd want to see more of it?  
> Also a lot of this is based on my own experiences studying Photography at Sixth Form.


End file.
